Cox Britannia Street

1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-78864-950-6
Verlag: Cinnamon Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 236 Seiten

Sometimes you have to lose yourself to find yourself. When life unravels for Beth after the break up of a long marriage, she finds herself reaching back for answers. Into her past as a troubled, pregnant teenager in a home rapidly falling apart. Into the life of her great-grandmother, using her skills as a researcher and psychoanalyst to find the truth behind family secrets. Moving between past and present, through parallel stories of family disintegration and lives knocked off course, and exploring how secrets resonate with shame down through the generations, Britannia Street is a story of how a woman carries trauma to her family and the world. A story with which so many will empathise. Will Beth be able to discover the lost parts of herself buried beneath the roles of daughter, wife, mother, nurse? Can she learn to understand and forgive herself? Will she emerge to find love again, and with who? Sometimes we have no idea why we make the choices we do, but for Beth, there is the chance to make the right choice. Family secrets and resilience weave together in this compelling story of how we deal with loss of so many kinds, even the loss of self. From historical fiction author, Beth Cox, Britannia Street is a vivid, compassionate fictionalised biography that will grip you from beginning to end.

Beth Cox (Susan E Kaberry) started writing fiction when she retired after working in the NHS for most of her life. She began writing Britannia Street when she was a student on the MA Creative Writing at Manchester University. She has also written two historical novels. Beth lives in Manchester with her husband and two miniature dachshunds.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cox, Beth

Leseproben

Chapter 4

Changes 1958

By the time I started school in September we had settled into our new house. I now had a long walk to the first bus stop, then I had to catch another bus from Bolton town centre to school. I missed walking home with my school friend Janet, and the long chats we used to have. My new bedroom was a tiny, stark white box-room. We couldn’t put wallpaper on the walls until the house had dried out, Father said, and that could take up to a year. My room was freezing cold as it had two outside walls, and no heating apart from a two-bar electric fire for winter mornings. My brother John had a bigger room even though he was hardly ever at home. But Mother was happy with her new fitted kitchen, which was clean and modern, and Father seemed pleased that he didn’t have to spend so much time travelling.

It was raining as I walked home from the bus that first day back. I’d forgotten my umbrella and my thin gabardine mac was soaked. My satchel was heavy with the books I needed for homework. It seemed to take forever to reach the corner of our road. I was relieved to see our house. I had a key, so I let myself in. The plain-walled house felt empty and cold. I shivered as I took off my coat and went into the kitchen which housed the Aga. Jinx was lying on her piece of old blanket behind the hot plates. That was her favourite place. My father filled up the Aga with anthracite every morning and evening, and Jinx had to be lifted off for this and when Mother was cooking, but she jumped back up again whenever she had the chance. Now she stretched and yawned when she saw me, letting out a little meow. There was a good smell of something cooking; Mother must have put a stew in the oven.

‘Where is she, Jinxy?’ I said.

Jinx rolled over and I stroked her tummy. She purred. I wandered into the dining room where a fire was laid. Kneeling, I struck a match, lit the scrunched-up newspaper and watched the orange flames flicker into life. Jinx followed me and we sat together on the rug enjoying the small excitement as the wood caught and the coal started to glow. I fed it from time to time with strategically placed pieces of coal. When the fire seemed to be going well, I wandered back into the kitchen to wash my hands. The sky was dark grey now, the day was closing down, and Mother was late. As I dried my hands, I heard the key in the lock. I went into the cold hall to meet her.

‘It’s horrible out there,’ she said.

‘I wondered where you were.’

‘Go and put the kettle on, I’ll be there in a minute.’

I made a pot of tea and we both sat at the Formica table next to the Aga. She put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands as we waited for the tea to brew. I looked at her greying head of hair. Mother was small and dark. Dumpy, Aunty Elsie had called her. Petite, Father said. I poured the milk into the cups.

‘I’ve been to the doctors,’ she said and took a sip of her tea. ‘And, well… the thing is I’ve got to go into hospital, for an operation. Well, it’s not really an operation, it’s… a procedure. It’s nothing really; I mean… having a little lump removed is nothing. I’ve got a lump here.’ She touched her left breast. ‘It’s a cyst but it’s better out.’

Mother’s mouth looked wobbly, as if she might cry. I’d never seen her cry. I didn’t know what to say or do and I felt as if I might cry myself, but I didn’t want to because that might set her off. I looked down at Jinx who was sitting next to us on the floor, and blinked away tears. I stared at the grey and yellow linoleum floor tiles Father had put down; there were a few remnants of the sticky, black stuff that he had stuck them down with still left on their edges. Mother had complained about it getting everywhere. Jinx jumped up onto Mother’s knee.

‘I’ll have to go into hospital next week, it has to be done soon.’ She stroked Jinx, pulling the cat’s ears down with each stroke. ‘I should have gone… anyway, it needs to be done.’

Jinx jumped down; she didn’t like having her ears flattened. Mother stood up.

‘I’d better put some potatoes on; your father will be here soon. Go and watch the television if you want, I’ll call you when tea’s ready.’

I did as I was told because I didn’t know what else to do. I turned the television on and off. I didn’t want to watch the news. I started to do my trigonometry homework. Cold boiled ham, I said to myself, cosine equals base over hypotenuse. But I couldn’t concentrate so I just sat there with my books open. Mother had never been ill before. I knew she had had an operation when I was born. It was called a caesarean and it had taken her a long time to recover. This procedure wasn’t a proper operation like that; it was only a small thing. But I sensed that something was wrong and that she was trying to pretend everything was all right. I heard the back door slam shut—my father arriving home—and I heard the low hum of their voices through the closed kitchen door. I packed away my maths books and went into the dining room.

I stroked Jinx, who was stretched out in front of the blazing fire. I picked her up; she was limp and sozzled with heat. She allowed herself to be draped around my shoulders and neck, all warm and soft. We sat like that for a few minutes and I watched the fire. I knew Mother was telling Father what she had told me. It was very quiet. I could only catch the occasional murmur. Then the serving hatch from the kitchen opened and Mother popped her head through.

‘Tea’s ready,’ she said. Her voice was pretend cheerful and the false bright look on her face poking through the serving hatch seemed both sad and hilarious. She had had this serving hatch specially made and she was very proud of it. I could feel a hysterical giggle bubbling up inside me. I was frantic to stop it, so I bent over and fussed about removing Jinx from my neck. Father came into the dining room.

‘How was school?’ he said as he sat at the table. He touched me on the shoulder as he passed me.

‘Okay, except the gooseberry crumble was so vile I said I’d be sick if I ate it, the smell of it made me feel ill.’

‘I thought it might be better in the senior dining room,’ said Mother as she passed the plates of food through the hatch to me.

The three of us started on our beef stew and mashed potatoes. After a few mouthfuls, Father paused.

‘What homework have you got tonight?’ said Father.

‘I’ve got to learn some French verbs,’ I said.

‘I’ll test you if you like after tea.’

‘I’ve opened a tin of mandarin oranges for afters,’ said Mother as she cleared away our plates.

When we’d finished eating, Mother went into the kitchen to wash up. I asked Father if he would test me. He put down his book and smiled at me; he often gave me very loving smiles which I used to enjoy but which more recently I was beginning to feel embarrassed by. I noticed that he had his hand on his side. This was nothing unusual. For as long as I can remember Father had had a pain in his side. He’d had it investigated—barium meals and an investigative operation. All revealed nothing physically wrong with him. It was his nerves, the doctor said. This was the reason he had sold his business in Bolton. But as I think more about this and write about it from my adult view, I wonder why he then bought another business, which he knew nothing about, and which would soon bring him as much stress as the previous business had. As a child I accepted the grown-ups’ decisions on this and never even questioned it until now. But surely it wasn’t a sensible way forward?

‘Beth,’ he said. ‘Before I test you… I know Mummy has told you that she’s going to have a little minor operation done next week—I’m going to get in touch with Aunty Lizzy tomorrow to see if you can go and stay with her while Mummy is in hospital. Would you like that?’

‘Can’t I stay here? I want to be near Mummy.’

‘We think it’s best if you go to Aunty Lizzy’s. It should only be for a week or so. Jinx can go with you, Lizzy likes Jinx.’

‘Can I take my bicycle?’

‘Of course.’

‘I could ride to school with Janet like I used to before.’

He smiled a half smile tinged with sadness. I felt sad too. I had never been separated from my mother, apart from the odd night or two when I’d stayed with my aunts, and I wanted to stay at home where I imagined I wouldn’t miss her quite so much. But it was just for a few nights and Jinx could go with me.

Father took me to Aunty Lizzy’s at the weekend. Aunt Lizzy lived not far from our old house. John called her ‘the maiden aunt’ because she had never married, and had looked after Grandad until he died the previous year. Grandad had been a bit mad before he died, getting things muddled up and farting when he walked. He didn’t do much, just sat in his armchair and read his newspaper while Aunty Lizzy waited on him hand and foot. He never took any notice of me, although for a few months before he died, he came regularly to our house to be looked after by my mother while Aunty Lizzy went to work. They shared him out between the relatives because he kept wandering off and getting lost when he was left alone. He pointed to a pair of my navy-blue, school knickers on the washing line and said, ‘That’s the boss’s top hat.’ I told my friend Janet and we laughed at this, pointing to each other’s navy-blue knickers as we got changed for gym, repeating the phrase to each other—‘That’s the boss’s top hat’. That’s the only thing I can remember him saying to me.

I slept in his old bedroom during my stay with Aunty Lizzy. It had...